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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27097807">Sailing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daniscats/pseuds/Daniscats'>Daniscats</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Incredible Story of Captain Shepard and the Love that Saved the Galaxy! Drabbles and Misc [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 04:07:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27097807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daniscats/pseuds/Daniscats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Fictober challenge. The prompt was 'a not well-known head cannon for a human character'.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Shepard &amp; Liara T'Soni, Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Incredible Story of Captain Shepard and the Love that Saved the Galaxy! Drabbles and Misc [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/789996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>MEFFW Fictober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sailing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>      Shepard stepped out of the lift into the cargo bay and into a wall of sound. The music was so loud that she could feel the percussion through her ribcage before her ears actually heard anything. She was briefly concerned that it might be enough to damage her hearing. The large area was already a bit chaotic with pre-mission prep and the discordant music just made it more so. Besides Lieutenants Cortez and Vega, there were technicians and other crewmen checking systems and moving equipment into and out of the shuttle. Shepard made a few taps on her omni-tool to mute some of the sound as she walked over to the weapon’s bench. </p><p>      “God, Vega!” Cortez was literally yelling to make himself heard over frenetic sound. “How can you listen to this shit? It isn’t even music. There’s no melody, there’s nothing! It’s just noise!” </p><p>      Vega did one more pull-up and then launched himself off the bar. </p><p>      “Oorah! This isn’t music, Cortez. It’s a power charge! Nothing gets me ready for a mission like death metal. I am PUMPED!” </p><p>       There was a final section of the song as the vocalist, in a distorted, exaggerated deep voice, started shouting about...something, the words largely unintelligible. </p><p>      As the song ended, Cortez laughed, shaking his head. </p><p>      “It’s awful. It’s like toxic masculinity in audible form. It’s like teenage angst in a song.” </p><p>      “It’s a hell of a lot better than that dance shit that you listen to. You don’t know because you don’t go into combat. You need music that is going to pump you up, jump-start your senses, get you ready to kill!” </p><p>      “Excuse me?” Cortez put down the tool he was holding and turned away from his shuttle to fully face James across the deck. “I’ll bet I’ve done a hell of a lot more combat missions than you, Vega. And I don’t need that juvenile noise to get ready for them.” </p><p>      “Ha! Your dance music is not juvenile? It’s made for teenage girls!” Vega went over to his work bench and hit the monitor there, stopping the music. “And I know you run combat missions but you aren’t a ‘boots on the ground’ grunt like I am. There’s a difference! You need to be ready for something like that.” </p><p>      Cortez motioned to the people moving around him, helping to check the shuttle’s systems and making sure it was properly fueled and stocked. </p><p>      “Right. No prep at all. I just get up there and wing it.” </p><p>      “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it!” Vega yelled back, though much lower now that the music was off. “Ground combat is just another animal from air combat. You need to get psyched! You need to be sharp. You need to be ready to kill or be killed and nothing does that better than thrash.” </p><p>      Vega put down the rifle he was working on and turned towards Shepard at the front of the hangar. </p><p>      “Shepard knows what I mean! I will bet you she listens to the very same kind of music to get ready.” </p><p>      “Nah. Techno dance is my bet”, Cortex smiled. “It gives you plenty of energy and Shepard actually has some taste.” </p><p>      “What about it, Lola?”, Vega shouted a little louder. “Settle a bet for us. What do you listen to to get ready for a mission?” </p><p>      Shepard lifted her head from her work and shook her head. </p><p>      “Uh, no. Leave me out of this. I’m just glad you turned off the noise.” </p><p>      “Hah! You see, Vega? She agrees with me that that stuff is trash, not thrash. You listen to dance, right, Shepard?” </p><p>      “What I listen to or not listen to is my own business. Because I listen to it or not, privately on my own implants and don’t make everyone else suffer by putting it on the overhead. Like you both should be doing.”   </p><p>      “Okay, so maybe not thrash but rock for sure. None of that disco crap.”</p><p>      “Disco??”, Cortez asked incredulously. “You call the latest, most complex technical music, disco?” </p><p>      “There’s only two real types of music really. Rock and disco. If you aren’t listening to rock, you are one of those pansies who listen to disco.” </p><p>      “Excuse me, Mr. Vega? There’s classical and country and jazz. And what exactly is a pansy?!” </p><p>      “Hey! You know I didn’t mean it like that!” </p><p>      “And how did you mean it?” </p><p>      “You know, it’s a guy who is cowardly or weak like a woman.” </p><p>      At this, Shepard looked up from her work and shook her head at the Lieutenant.  </p><p>      “That’s it, Vega.” Cortez laughed. “Piss off your woman commander and your gay pilot. Not much room for brains in all that muscle I know, but I didn’t think you were that dumb.” </p><p>      “I didn’t mean Lola, I meant normal women.”</p><p>      “Whoa!” Cortex laughed. “That’s it, just keep digging that hole.” </p><p>      “There are different kinds of strength, Vega, and physical strength is the least of them.” Shepard didn’t even bother to look up this time. “A wise person would work on developing other strengths besides their muscles.” </p><p>      “Sure, Lola. But when you’re going into a firefight, this is the kind of strength that you need! Oorah!” James flexed his biceps and then hopped up on his pullup bar again.  </p><p> </p><p>_______________________________________</p><p> </p><p>      “Come on, Lola. Just give us a little listen.” </p><p>      Shepard just rolled her eyes as she sat down again in one of the seats of the shuttle. The LZ was still about twenty out but it appeared that she would have no peace and quiet before she got to the potential combat zone on that day. It was pretty bad when landing in a potential combat zone might actually bring more calm. </p><p>      “I’m under no obligation to reveal anything to you or anyone else just so you have something to bet on.” </p><p>      “Oh, you heard about that, huh?” </p><p>      “I hear about most things on my ship, Vega. Best you remember that.” </p><p>      “I told you, Vega.” Garrus was sitting across from Shepard and the Lieutenant. “ No one will ever win this bet because she will never let us know her playlist. Though I still say she is like me and listens to orchestral military marches to get ready for missions.” </p><p>      Vega laughed. “No one listens to orchestral military marches to get ready for anything but you, Turian.” </p><p>     “I’ll have you know that military instrumentals are very popular on turian ships and since we are the best fighters, that’s probably what Shepard listens to. Or something very similar and that’s all that is needed to win, right Vega?”</p><p>     “Sure. Assuming no one names an actual song on Shepard’s playlist, the one closest in genre wins. And bullshit on turians being the best fighters!” </p><p>      “If she doesn’t listen to the latest techno-dance from Earth, I suppose she could listen to batarian speed dance. That stuff will get you going for sure.” Cortez opined from the cockpit. </p><p>     “OR batarian speed metal”, remarked Vega. “Now that stuff is brutal. I didn’t even know a beat could get that fast.” </p><p>      “I’ve heard that stuff. It’s awful,” Cortez responded. “I read that it is supposed to emulate the heartbeat of a Cantuu from Khar’shan at 2000 beats per minute. It feels like a heart attack.” </p><p>      “That’s your problem, Egghead. You read too much.”</p><p>      “I have to make up for the meatheads like you who don’t read at all.” </p><p> </p><p>_____________________________________________</p><p>      “Just hang in there, James. We’ll have you back home in no time.” </p><p>      The squad made it back to the shuttle but just barely and likely would not have if Cortez had not managed to make a dangerous hot landing not far from the position of the ambush. Shepard and Garrus had made it through with just some scrapes and bruising from rounds hitting their armor, but Vega had a serious leg wound. Shepard looked down at the shredded leg as Garrus applied more medi-gel directly to the wounds there. </p><p>      “Dios mio, that hurts!” Vega exclaimed through gritted teeth.  </p><p>      “I know. It takes the medi-gel a second or two to kick in. Just hold on.” </p><p>      “Maybe a little more medi-gel? How bad does it look?” </p><p>      “It’s nothing”, Shepard lied. </p><p>      “Nothing that the Doc can’t fix”, Garrus spoke truthfully. “We’ll have you back out there catching bullets in no time.” </p><p>      “Fun. Fuck, that hurts.” </p><p>      “We had to stop the bleeding and used most of the medi-gel for that.” Shepard said. “I’d give you a separate painkiller and sedative but Chakwas said that she needs you to stay awake because of your head injury. It’s just a precaution but you’ll have to grit it out.” </p><p>      “Only 8 minutes out.” Cortez called out from the cockpit. The pilot had the shuttle’s throttle pushed full forward and his eyes remained glued to his HUD. “Just hang in there, James.” </p><p>      “I know what will help.” Shepard smiled. “You want to hear what I listen to before a mission?” </p><p>      Shepard hit her omni-tool and a slow-tempo song came on the shuttle’s speakers. </p><p>      <em> Sailing. Takes me away. To where I’ve always heard it. Just a dream and the wind to      carry me. Soon I will be free. </em></p><p>      The pain on Vega’s face turned to something else and then eventually morphed into a smile as he laughed through his pain. </p><p>      “What is this?! What am I hearing?” </p><p>      “It’s an old song. It’s called ‘yacht rock’ and it’s what I listen to before and sometimes during a mission.” </p><p>      “This is even more painful than my leg.” </p><p>      “That is pretty bad, Shepard.” Garrus agreed. “And we should turn it off because Chakwas wants Vega to stay awake.” </p><p>      Cortez chuckled. “And I need to stay awake to fly this bird back to the nest or we all die.” </p><p>      “That’s what this song is. Death.” Vega grimaced. “Now I’m going to have to give everyone their money back because NO ONE would guess that.” </p><p>      “Unlike you animals, I don’t need to get pumped up for battle. Bullets flying at me tend to amp me up just fine. I need to stay chill and to focus and slow things down.” </p><p>      “This will do it!” Vega exclaimed. “Maybe you should lead meditation classes after the war, Lola.” </p>
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